Doctors in Lebanon fear for their lives as bombs rain down
Doctors at one of the biggest hospitals in southern Lebanon say they’re scared for their lives after a string of nearby attacks within a few days.
Half of the staff have already left. The others have moved into the building and have been living at the hospital for the past ten days.
“You know, it’s hard to work in fear,” Dr Mohammad Taoube tells us, who is head of the hospital’s emergency response (ER).
He adds: “I’m afraid first, about my safety and about my family’s safety because there’s no safe place in Lebanon now.”
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Dr Mohammad Taoube
The hospital has seen three close attacks recently, including one which landed outside the emergency department, blocking its entrance and injuring casualties who had just been tended to by ER staff.
“They were injured twice,” says one doctor. “Once from bombs on their home, and then this as they were about to leave.”
The medics believe the nearby attacks are intended to scare them to leave or abandon the hospital.
Dr Abdul Nasser, who is a general surgeon at the hospital (which we are not naming for safety reasons), tells us how he fears the attacks, which are coming ever closer, are a deliberate tactic.
“As soon as the doctors leave then no one will stay in my city,” Dr Nasser says. “And once people leave, it is very difficult to come back.”
He goes on to urge his medical staff to stay in position and keep on working. “Soldiers can’t leave the battle… so likewise doctors, nurses, must stay in the hospitals. I don’t want anyone to leave. We must stay.”
Dr Abdul Nasser
Dr Nasser is a veteran of three previous wars. He tells us: “This is the worst and it will go on for a long time.”
He goes on: “I never left before. I never left the hospital in the previous wars.”
“Yes, I’m scared,” he admits. “But I try to be positive and carry on with my life and just do what I have to do.”
The hospital has taken in about 1,500 war wounded in the past fortnight.
They are no longer operating as they did pre-war but are one of the key emergency centres for casualties, some of whom are evacuated from the frontlines right up against the border.
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A family of five are the latest to be brought in from the border village of Alma al Chaab. The youngest, nine-year-old Mariam, is writhing in pain when we arrive with Dr Nasser to see her.
She was sitting with her mother and siblings when a rocket hit the house.
“Everything just fell on me,” she says. Her left leg is bandaged up to the hip.
“She has a double fracture and it’s pinned,” Dr Nasser tells us. “Her arm is broken and she has several wounds.”
Her elder brother is standing nearby. He’s still in his blood-stained clothes – dusty and spattered with large stains of blood.
He is 19 and still reeling from what’s happened. “It’s a big shock. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before,” he says.
Mariam was injured when a rocket hit her house
The casualties that are most overwhelming to deal with are women and children, the medics tell us.
“It is hard to cope with children’s pain,” says Dr Taoube. “Very, very hard. I hope you never see this. I hope other doctors never have to deal with this. It is very hard.”
Dr Hussam Telleih adds: “We don’t feel safe, the patients don’t feel safe… they [the Israelis] are saying there’s rockets or bombs in or around the hospital from Hezbollah but this isn’t true… we deny all these things.”
Two wounded men at the hospital in southern Lebanon
Many of the cities and communities in the southern area have emptied out – with the Lebanese government estimating about a million people are on the move and out of their homes – the largest displacement in the country’s history.
But there are still many civilians who can’t or won’t leave their homes.
“Why should I leave?” says Mohammad Halawi. “It’s kind of like collective punishment. They claim they target specific people but they’re killing everyone.”
He is standing in the destroyed block which once housed 32 members of his family in five separate flats. He tells us he thinks the target may have been the house right behind his.
Mohammad Halawi surveys the aftermath of an air strike on a building which once housed 32 members of his family
His neighbour was a Hezbollah supporter but he knew very little else about him. He and his family of eight, including children, were all killed in the attack. More than a dozen other homes have been destroyed.
His nephew’s young wife Anwar died – leaving behind two toddlers. Her husband was at work, so he survived. Several other members of the family have been left injured.
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Mother killed and house destroyed in Lebanon
The war wounded in the hospital are stabilised as quickly as possible and emergency surgery is carried out if needed.
But patients are then evacuated to other areas considered to be relatively safer, like Beirut.
Finding a safe location in Lebanon is becoming increasingly challenging, though.
“They don’t have hearts, or morals or any humanity,” another injured man in the hospital tells us, his head bound with a bandage.
“If they were hitting military targets, we’d just keep quiet,” said Oussama Najdi who came from Deir Kanoun. “But they hit our house – and we don’t even have one small gun between us.”
Alex Crawford reports from southern Lebanon with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producers Jihad Jneid and Sami Zein.
The cardinals have arrived, the finishing touches are being made; Vatican City is preparing for an election like no other.
On Wednesday, the papal conclave begins and many visitors to St Peter’s Square already have a clear view on what they would like the outcome to be.
“I want a liberal pope,” says Joyce who has travelled to Rome from the US.
“My number one is Pierbattista Pizzaballa,” says blogger Teodorita Giovannella referencing the 60-year-old Italian cardinal.
Rome resident Michele Rapinesi thinks the next pope will be the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who was Pope Francis’ number two.
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Although the job of selecting the next pontiff lies with 133 cardinal electors, Ms Giovannella and Mr Rapinesi are among 75,000 Italians playing an online game trying to predict who they’ll pick.
Fantapapa is a similar format to fantasy football, but teams are made up of prospective pontiffs.
Ms Giovannella has chosen three popular Italians as her favourites: Cardinals Pizzaballa, Zuppi and Parolin.
After 47 years she wants an Italian pope but believes an Asian or African would be a good “plot twist”.
Despite the growing speculation and excitement, for the cardinal electors the papal conclave is the serious and sombre process of choosing the next leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion followers.
Teodorita Giovannella is hoping the next pope will be a fellow Italian
To keep the vote secret, they are locked in the Sistine Chapel which has been swept for hidden cameras, recording equipment and bugs.
The windows are covered to keep the outside world out and to stop drones from spying.
Mobile phones are banned and signal jammers have been installed to help stop any information being leaked.
Ballots are burned after they are cast and a plume of coloured smoke shows people if a new pope has been chosen.
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The cardinal who is elected will become one of the most powerful men in the world and will set the course for the Catholic Church for years to come, making decisions which will affect the lives of millions of people worldwide.
Pope Francis’ 12-year reign pulled the church in a more progressive direction.
His fight for migrants and climate change made him a muse for Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta.
He met him five times and painted more than 30 pictures of him, celebrating his life on the walls of Rome.
Siobhan Robbins with Rome street artist Mauro Pallotta
One of Mr Pallotta’s artworks of Pope Francis
One shows Francis with a catapult shooting out hearts.
“It depicts the strong love he had for people,” Mr Pallotta explains.
In another, he wears a cape and is depicted as a superhero.
“I hope the new pope continues the way of Pope Francis and remembers the poor people of the world,” he says.
Whether the next pontiff is another pope of the people, a progressive or conservative will soon be decided by the cardinals.
Their choice will determine if the Catholic Church continues down the route set by Francis or takes a different path.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
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